


Process

by akire_yta



Series: the drawer sessions [8]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: F/M, John Needs Hugs, Other, and possibly therapy, implied toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 16:32:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12685791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: sad John blooming next to Penny





	1. Chapter 1

The first sign of life was a photograph.

It wasn’t even framed; just the thin piece of plasticky card, the edge of the picture jammed in under the corner of the edge of handle to keep it pinned to the refrigerator door.

John didn’t have fridge magnets.  He didn’t have anything in house that wasn’t black, white, or grey and starkly utilitarian.  The rest of the kitchen was still monochrome, not a dish or fork out of order.  But now, there was this one flicker of life, a single photograph she had taken of them, out for a walk one bright day.

He had printed it, and put it up where he could look at it every day, without any prompting, without any need apart from the fact that it was a memory of a good day.

Penny had to bite her fist as she stared at herself, frozen in time against him.  She had it under control by the time John stepped into the kitchen.  She didn’t mention it, and neither did he as they finished making dinner, washed the dishes, turned off the light.

She bought fridge magnets the next day though, small sleek silvery dots strong enough to keep a photograph safe.

It really was a good picture of them.

* * *

The second sign was a text:  _ wear old clothes _ .

It felt odd to be standing there, barefoot in old cut-offs and a shirt she’d had since she was at boarding school.  The furniture was covered in plastic dropclothes.  “Are we re-decorating?”

John still got shy sometimes, adorably bashful as he cautiously put together words to the effect of  _ I want. _  “I was channel surfing last night, saw something similar and got inspired.  I thought maybe this wall?”

The paint in the tin was a rich, regal blue, the perfect foil to the monochrome of the rest of the apartment.  Penny happily pushed the roller as John blended the edges to a perfect straight line.  They ate leftover takeout on the floor, both of them speckled with tiny sprays of blue paint. “Why blue?” Penny asked him, running her thumb over a splash on his arm that had already dried.

He shrugged.  “I like blue.”  Six months ago, he’d have said it like a defense, wary and on edge, waiting for attack.  Now, it’s a statement of personal fact.

Penny rested her head on his shoulder and admired the handywork.  “Pink’s nicer.”  She laughed as he shoved her over and tickled her until she yielded, heedless of the wet brushes and trays.

* * * 

The milestones came thick and fast after that.  The blue wall became the home of photographs, framed and hung.  They walked the markets and antiques fairs, and came home with prints he had liked and knicknacks he’d been unable to put down.  He tended towards tactile things, still useful but beautiful in their own right, like the little rings puzzle and the strange, lacquered memory box that Penny had found but that reminded her of him.

Penny presented him the triptych of old star maps, beautifully mounted and framed, on the anniversary of his first day in therapy.  They’d danced around the room, over the ruby red Persian rug and past the new bookshelf he’d put up to hold all his favourite things, soft jazz playing from discrete speakers as they’d had a very private party to celebrate.

She’d laid down the law, a year ago.  They weren’t having sex, not until they were both sure it was something he truly wanted, not just something he thought he had to do to please her.  But she still spent more nights in his bed than hers, cuddled together, talking in whispers or just breathing together in the dark.

The press of his body against hers as he held her tight and spun her gently were like a promise.

_ Soon. _

* * *

John’s angry, in the way that reminds her of before he turned it all around.  It’s a tightly coiled fury, viciously held in check by willpower alone, like even the expression of his own emotion is more than he’s permitted.

Penny coaxed the story out of him by degrees.

Scott.  Their father. A rumour.

“And so now I have my father’s PA calling me at six am to ask when he should schedule your visit.” They don’t even play it’s another woman Scott has spun the story around.  Penny knows she’s the sole real person who both has chosen to be with and has also been chosen by John.

“So,” she said, trying to find the silver lining.  “When is our grand roadtrip to the big city?”

“It’s not?”  John’s entire tone changes when his family is the subject, sliding back into the cautious, hesitant language of someone expecting not to have their opinions heard.  “I told them no.”

Penny nodded, feeling that now familiar bubble of  _ pride _ .  “Good on you.”  When John loses his ability to be decisive, she’ll remind him how to be stern.   He’s come a long way, but they both know he’s still a work in progress.  

Besides, she’s not ready yet to meet the great Jeff Tracy.  She wants six weeks hard upper body work at the gym and possibly a set of brass knuckles at the ready before she’s stood before him.  First impressions count, and in her deepest fantasies, that meeting ends with Jeff splayed out on the floor with a bloody nose.

She may have gotten a  _ tad  _ possessive of John’s hard-won peace.

“He won’t listen.”  John’s shoulders are slumped, his eyes downcast.  There’s a fatalism there that Penny’s still not sure how to navigate.  So she takes his hand and squeezes gently, like a promise, like a vow that she hopes like hell she can keep.

* * *

John comes by his height honestly.  But in the flesh, Jeff Tracy is far more solid and stocky than his son.  He looks down at her; it’s impossible not to.  He’s in a full three piece suit and woolen great coat.  She’s barefoot, in her painting shorts and John’s old NASA hoodie, which makes her feel every inch of the height difference.

When John towered over her, she just felt protected and adored.  With Jeff standing too close in the doorway, she feels anything but safe.

Jeff’s not use to stopping, and he’s through the door before Penny can properly block it.  They’re cleaning the flat today; making room for Penny’s things, boxed up and ready in her own tiny flat.  But Jeff glances over the mop in its bucket by the fridge, the duster on the coffee table, Penny herself, and leaps to his own conclusion.  “You clean his apartment?”  His tone makes it clear that he approved that arrangement.

“Actually, this is a team effort,” she shot back archly.

Jeff frowned as if her words were a minor irritation.  “And where is my son?  He can avoid my calls but not a visit.”

“He’s just gone out for supplies.”  Penny’s mind was racing, testing and discarding contingency after contingency.

“I’ll wait,” Jeff’s already stripping off his coat, draping it over the couch arm.  Penny glared daggers as he drifted towards the bookshelf.  “Are these yours?” he asked, gesturing at the knickknacks, the books, all the signs of John’s new life.

“Those are John’s,” she said evenly.

Jeff merely hums thoughtfully.  Penny hovers as Jeff wanders along the wall, touching and looking.  “So you’re sleeping with my son?”  The question comes out of left field, and Penny takes half a step back on instinct.  So much of who John was has started to make a painful kind of sense, and it’s only five minutes since this man knocked on her door.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, matching arch with arch.  “I could just be the maid?”

That gets her his full attention.  “His brother tells me you were in bed together the last time he called.  You’re alone in John’s apartment, and he’s always been so very touchy about his personal space.  And that’s his hoodie.”

“Mine now.”  It’s petulant, but she couldn’t stop herself for anything.

The claim gets her nothing more than a gentle hum as he turns to study the photographs of the two of them in a cluster of frames at the very end of the shelf.  “You must be very special, Penny,” he says at last.  

She wonders how he learned her name.  She’s not surprised he has.  “How so?”

He turns again, steps on the rug to look down at her.  This time she holds her ground.  “Ever since his mother passed, John has been very reserved and hard to know.  That you’ve pushed past those boundaries is quite the feat.”

Penny steps closer, her bare toes inches from the shiny tips of his shoes.  “Your son,” she said with low fury.  “Is the kindest, sweetest, most generous person I have ever met.  He is breathlessly easy to love.  So how you managed to go over a decade without showing him the slightest bit of affection is the real mystery here.”

His brow furrows, and Penny just wants to  _ slap _ him.  “He doesn’t want affection from me,” Jeff declares. There’s a bitterness there Penny doesn’t care to examine.

“The John I met a year ago,” she hisses.  “Had himself so thoroughly convinced that he was unlovable and unworthy of anything except being broken down for scrap I sometimes wonder how he survived as long as he did.  And it was truly survival, not living. Shut up,” she snarled as he opened his mouth.  “You use him and spit him out and don’t show him a second’s kindness and then you wonder why all he shows  _ you  _ is a blank face?  How many times have you taken his sweetness for weakness?  Disregarded anything he said or did that didn’t contribute to your bank account.  No,” she added as he inhaled, ballooning up righteously before her.  “You don’t get to pull that crap with me.  I’m not afraid of you. But I am angry, absolutely  _ furious,  _ for him.”  She jammed a finger hard into his chest, right over where his heart should be.  “Now get out of our home and don’t come back until you’re ready to be a father to your  _ son _ .”

He went silently, which Penny wasn’t expecting.  Only when the locked  _ clicked  _ did she crumple down onto the floor and silently began to sob.

 


	2. Scott tries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott tries

“Come on, dad.”

There was a tone, rarely heard from Scott, that had Jeff finally looking up from his paperwork.  “Come on  _what_ , Scott,” he half-teased his eldest.  “Do you want me to remind you that you’re a smarty-pants as well?” He sat back, grinning.  “Or just a plain smart-ass?”

Scott wasn’t smiling.  “And.”

Jeff was thoroughly confused now; Scott in a mood could be as hard to follow as John some days.  “And what?”

“And what else have you said about John lately.  Because,” he continued with barely a pause for Jeff to defend himself.  “From where I’m sitting, you care everything about the eight pounds between his ears and nothing about the other 180.”

Jeff felt his eyes narrow.  He was protective of his sons, even if it meant protecting them from each other.  “Take a care with your words here, son.”

Scott seemed more frustrated than angry.  “Dad, you get pissed at any profile that’s all about your business acumen and doesn’t even mention you’re a dad. You always say you’re ‘more than that.’ Don’t you think John deserves to hear more than ‘he’s smart’?”

“Smart’s nothing to be ashamed of, Scott.”

The noise Scott makes is pure exasperation.  “And I’m not saying it is.  But John isn’t  _just_  smart.  He’s so witty, I mean, has you bent double gasping funny.  And he’s so, so kind I sometimes think he’s actually six feet of fluffy bunny in a smart suit.  And he’s so passionate about the things he loves, you can’t help but love them too.”

Jeff had risen during this litany of his second’s son’s character, turned his back to stare out the window so Scott couldn’t see his father’s heart breaking all over again.

John was like Lucy, that’s what Scott was saying without realizing.  He was all the best parts of her, pulled together in a quiet brilliance that sometimes left Jeff gasping, he missed her so much.

“Dad?”

Jeff hopes the setting sun will cast his face into shadow as he half-turns.  “Did this have a point, son?”

Scott’s wary, knowing something is wrong even if he wasn’t sure exactly wrong.  He got that from his mother, but whereas John was brilliantly  _hers_ , Scott’s mother appeared in her firstborn in flashes, a strobing kaleidoscope that came and went so fast it didn’t hurt as much.  “School is sucking for him.  His grades are fine, better than fine,” Scott raced on before Jeff could make the point.  “Mainly because  _being smart_  is the last thing left for him in that hellhole.”

Jeff frowned.  “I thought you liked that school.”

Scott scoffed. “I do.  It’s made for someone like me.  But John isn’t me.  And John is being  _pulled apart_  there.”

Jeff sighed and sank back into his seat.  Scott had been a dramatic little shit when he was a toddler, and it had never quite gone away.  “Scott, John’s grades are fine, his teacher’s reports are glowing.  And John himself hasn’t said a word against the place.”

Scott scowled.  “He wouldn’t,” he muttered darkly in a way Jeff wasn’t sure he was meant to hear.  “Dad, John doesn’t complain.  That’s not in his nature either.  He’s more a beat himself against the rocks until the rocks give way kind of guy.”

Jeff reopened his paperwork.  “I’ll talk to him,” he said, meaning it to sound like a dismissal.

Scott stood, too-well raised to resist.  “That won’t work.  Not with John.”

It was fired off like a parting shot, and then Jeff was alone in his office.

Jeff paused, stylus hovering over the dark screen.  Surely John knew…Jeff shook his head and tapped in his passcode.  

John was a smart boy.  He knew.


	3. Five Hugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more of sad John

1) John was the last person in their family to hug their mother.  John always tried to go last of his brothers, just so he could hold on the longest, feel the  _inhale-exhale_  of her breathing.

His mother had let him cling for several beats of her heart before she had dropped a light kiss on his head and disappeared up the mountain.

She didn’t come down.

John held onto that hug for too long after that.

2) Alan shoved John away with the violent force of a child.  “I’m a big boy, I don’t need hugs.”

The words  _boys always need hugs_  died in John’s throat at their father’s unvoiced noise of praise.  He settled for taking extra care settling the straps of Allie’s backpack on his skinny shoulders before Alan wiggled free and made a bolt for the door.

3) John’s bag is heavy over his shoulder, his passport like a brick.  “Well, that’s my flight.”  He could have taken the family jet, but a part of John always felt like an impostor.  He and his father had compromised on a first class ticket on the most luxurious airline plying the route.  He didn’t care if it was a crate with wings; he planned to sleep through from takeoff to landing.

“Well, have a good time at Oxford, John.”  His father’s handshake is strong and bold, his deal-signing handshake, his cutting the ribbon handshake.

John has seen him do it a thousand times over the years, and the response is automatic. One, two, firm yet yielding, a mutual release.

John didn’t look back all the way down the airbridge.

4) Penny’s slick is drying in his pubes, smeared down his dick and across his balls.  She’d been almost wild, fingers clawing at his skin, kisses almost like bites across his chest.  But now she’s gone quiet and still on the mattress next to him, the curve of her spine pressing lightly into his hip.  There’s an invitation there, in the pale, bare skin of her back, the inward arch of her spine.

John rolls the other way, out of bed and across into the shower.

5) “I really missed you boys.”

The words are light in the bright atmosphere of a kitchen that hasn’t seen sunshine since she went up the mountain.  For once, there’s no disapprobation in his father’s voice, no lurking ulterior motive.  Just a soft,  _real_  sadness and an honesty John once doubted his father was even capable of anymore.

John put down the cup he had been drying and walked around the table.  His father is both broader and smaller than he remembers, all at the same time.  But John is longer now, and skinny arms reach easily around the old man’s barrel of a chest.

“Me too, dad,” John replied, cheek against ribs so that he felt his father’s deep inhale and sigh.

He’d hold on as long as he needed.


End file.
